Trapped by Red Tape
by Galadriel1010
Summary: The one where the Torchwood team are trapped in the Hub by health and safety, and have to amuse themselves.


**Auhtor's Note:** A story for Harriet, who's probably been feeling left out lately. She texted me a prompt and I wrote it, simples. Merry Christmas sweetheart!

* * *

Owen slammed his hand on his desk and swore at the computer screen. Tosh immediately wheeled her chair over to him and looked over his shoulder, whilst Ianto and Gwen looked up from their conversation in interest. "Is something wring, Owen?" Tosh asked, pushing her glasses up her nose.

"Yeah, something is very fucking wrong, Tosh," he span around on his chair. "We appear to be trapped in the Hub."

"What?" Gwen hurried over to join Tosh and Owen, whilst Ianto knocked on Jack's door frame to get his attention and beckoned him over too. "We can't be, there's loads of exits."

Owen leaned back in his chair and pointed a pen at Ianto. "Ianto, what exits are there?"

"TI Office, flooded and too dangerous," he started. "There's the lift."

"They've closed the Plass, it's sheet ice up there and three people have fallen and hurt themselves, we can't get out. Next?"

"Car park?"

"Flooded and icy, cars are frozen in place. Next?"

"Boat house?" Owen just laughed at that one and Ianto frowned. "The warehouse?"

"Tunnel's been marked as unsafe," Jack interrupted. "All the other exist are. We could use them, there's even the old train tunnels to London and Glasgow, but there's not much point, they all come out too far away. Protocol sixty three then."

Ianto just nodded and headed to the store rooms, but the others were turning on Jack with varying degrees of confusion. Owen had already got the idea, Tosh was getting there and Gwen was refusing to accept it. "There must be another way, Jack," she insisted. "We can't be locked in here again!"

"Sorry, Gwen," Jack told her, genuinely apologetic. "It's happened before. Doesn't happen often, but with health and safety stuff now it's more likely to happen, they trap us in here with bureaucracy."

She looked like she was about to say something when Ianto returned with four sleeping bags in stuff-sacks and a bag full of lilos. "At least we have the electric pump these days," he pointed out. "We don't have to inflate our own beds any more."

Owen counted up and frowned. "Who thinks they're getting home?" he asked.

Jack shook his head. "I've got a room here."

"I can get you another, if you'd like to join us, sir," Ianto read his expression correctly. "I just couldn't carry any more."

"Let me get it," Jack told him. "Do we have any marshmallows in?"

"No, sir, but we do have a large tin of Celebrations, I believe," Ianto was pulling the lilos out of the carrier bag and laying them out and discovered that he'd actually brought five anyway, purely by accident. "You don't need a lilo, just a sleeping bag."

"Okay," Jack returned with his sleeping bag and dumped it on the pile with the others. "Right, people. I'm sorry you're stuck here, but we're going to have to make the most of it and hope that the weather turns enough tomorrow to get us out. I expect they'll clear the car park exit at least."

Tosh, as usual, was the most accepting of the situation, and had gone back to working on her calculations. Gwen had cheered up at the mention of marshmallows, realising that Jack meant for this to be the bonding experience that the Brecon Beacons should have been, whilst Owen had accepted it with bad grace and pulled a Lara Croft game up on his computer, leaving Jack and Ianto to set the dormitory (as Jack insisted on calling it) up between them. Ianto, for his part, had fallen quiet, saying what he needed to to get the job done and not a lot more, and Jack was worried that, rather than strengthen it, tonight could seriously damage their recovering relationship.

As they were stuck here all night, all of them went back to work on their projects for a while – Owen to a pile of reports he'd got from UNIT, Tosh to a Rift Predictor Model, Gwen to some old case files, Jack to finishing some recent reports and Ianto to the archives. When Ianto returned, shivering slightly and wanting nothing more than to bury his freezing cold nose in Jack's neck and wait for Jack to warm him up (there was a huge difference in temperature between the archives and the main work area, and the main work area wasn't that warm) he found the rest of the team wrapped in their sleeping bags on their lilos, the tin of Celebrations unopened and apparently waiting for him to arrive. Jack beamed and patted the last lilo, between himself and Owen. "We were just about to send out a search party, Ianto. You look frozen."

"That would be because I am," Ianto told him shortly. To his surprise, Jack wriggled out of his sleeping bag and offered it to him. "Sir?"

Jack shrugged and shook it. "Already warm, but not for much longer. You look absolutely freezing."

Ianto slipped into it gratefully and watched as Jack wriggled into the other that had been spread out on the spare lilo. Jack had been right, his sleeping bag was warm, and it smelled of Jack – Ianto breathed deeply and closed his eyes, then opened them suddenly to find the others watching him closely. "Sorry, temperature difference," he told them, snuggling deeper into the sleeping bag. "Made me sleepy."

"Well we can't have that," Jack chided and popped the lid on the tin, then he pulled out a caramel and passed it to Ianto. "Sugar to keep you awake."

Caramels were his favourite, and Jack knew it, so Ianto opened the chocolate – fumbling slightly because his fingers were extremely cold – and popped it into his mouth before returning his hands to their cocoon. From Jack's smile, Ianto could tell that it hadn't just been a lucky guess. Gwen reached for a Malteaser thing and unwrapped it carelessly, then held it in front of her mouth. "We should play truth or dare again."

Owen groaned and fell backwards onto his lilo in slow motion, but Tosh smiled. "Good idea, I enjoyed it last time."

"You would," Owen told her gruffly.

Ianto, though, nodded. "Yeah, Jack missed out last time."

Finally, Jack caught on. "You played whilst I was gone?" he'd missed a lot whilst he was gone, apparently. Although he now knew most of what had gone on related to work, he was still finding out about things that had happened to them as people, and he felt like he'd missed a vital part of their lives, something that he could never get back. He hid that as best he could and stretched out on his front again. "Okay then, I'm in."

Owen cleared his throat. "Jack, truth or dare?"

He hesitated, thinking carefully. He didn't want a dare too soon, but he was scared of what they might ask. Still... "Truth."

"Were you public enemy number one, two or three?" Owen asked, and Tosh glared at him.

Jack just laughed ruefully. "Three. It was a bit of a sore point between us." Gwen giggled and he pointed at her. "P.C. Cooper, truth or dare?"

"Dare!" she yelled instantly.

"Right..." he looked around the Hub. "I dare you... to call Cardiff Council and complain that they've trapped us in. Saves me doing it in the morning."

Gwen glared at him as she reached up onto her desk for the phone and pulled it down into her lap. She tapped her finger against the side of the phone as it rang and pursed her lips. Tosh pointed at her watch and shrugged, but Jack shook his head. "Night like tonight, there will be someone there."

Sure enough, they heard two more rings and then it was answered. Despite her glares, she seemed to enjoy her altercation with the council official and looked extremely satisfied when she hung up. "They're going to open the fencing for us first thing tomorrow."

"Good," Jack said around a mouthful of chocolate. "Your call."

She clapped her hands together and looked at Owen. "Owen, truth or dare?"

"Dare," the reply was instant.

"Oh..." she frowned, then took a leaf out of Jack's book. "Go and find all the alcohol you can and bring it back here. Drinking alcohol, I mean. And some glasses."

He grumbled his way upright and off to the kitchen and back, returning to the warmth of his sleeping bag as soon as he could having deposited the collection of bottles and glasses in a heap next to the chocolate. Reaching for a bottle of spiced run and one of cola, he looked across at Tosh. "Truth or dare?"

She paused to consider this, apparently weighing the possibility of getting out of the sleeping bag against the possibility of having to give away something about herself and chose, "Truth."

"Have you ever lost a game of chess?" he asked.

Everyone laughed and Tosh held her glass out for him to fill for her. "Yes, a few. Losing is the best way to learn."

He grunted and concentrated on pouring cola into the rum. "I'll take your word for it. Your call now."

She nodded and looked across Owen to Ianto. "Ianto, truth or..."

"Dare," he said firmly.

"Okay then," she picked up a shot glass from the collection and used it to measure out the same amount of each of the different types of alcohol into a tall glass, then handed it to him. "Down in one," she instructed.

He eyed it dubiously, then closed his eyes and necked it. Almost immediately, he started spluttering, and Jack shifted over to thump his back and rub it firmly. Ianto's eyes were watering and he was gasping when he surfaced, but he was laughing as he leaned back against Jack's hand. "Wow, I think I lost about half my braincells there. That's lethal."

Tosh looked smug. "If you can't take the heat, Ianto, get out of the kitchen."

Ianto tipped his head back to look at Jack. "Truth, or dare?"

He unconsciously started moving his hand on Ianto's back again, then settled for. "Truth."

Ianto looked taken aback, and he looked down at his hands, hiding his expression from Jack. Eventually, without looking around, he asked quietly, "Did you miss us?"

Jack swallowed and nodded. "Every second. I never actually wanted to leave, I promise."

He looked up at his team and saw that Gwen was glaring at Ianto, whilst the other two were watching him with suspicion. The atmosphere wound tighter as the seconds dragged on, so he cleared his throat loudly and asked, "Tosh, truth or dare?"

She looked startled and answered too fast "Truth... or... yeah, truth."

"Okay..." he frowned in concentration. "Orlando Bloom, Jonny Depp, Keira Knightly," the others laughed and Tosh rolled her eyes. "Shag, marry or cliff?"

"Shag Keira, marry Jonny, cliff Legolas," she smirked over the rim of her glass. "Gwen, truth or dare?"

"Truth!"

"Shag, marry, cliff: Orlando Bloom, Viggo Mortensen and John Rhys-Davies," she asked.

"Ooo," Gwen frowned. "Who are the last two?"

"It's Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli," Owen sighed. "Please tell me you've seen Lord of the Rings?"

She slapped him lightly. "Of course I've seen Lord of the Rings. I'd shag Legolas, marry Aragorn because he's a king,"

"Legolas is a prince too," Tosh pointed out.

"Yeah, but he's an elf prince, so he never gets the throne," Ianto argued.

"Okay, so shag Legolas, marry Aragorn and cliff Gimli. He'd probably bounce anyway," Gwen giggled. "Oh! Is that Cointreau?"

"Yes, yes it is," Ianto passed it over to her. "Your call, remember."

"Yep, Owen?"

"Dare," he sighed.

"Oh..." she pointed the neck of the bottle at him. "Go and seranade Myfanwy. Sing You're The Voice to her."

Owen glared at Gwen, but he got out of his sleeping bag again and went to the ladder, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he did so. He hung from the ladder a few steps down and set the music going, then slithered back down it when she launched into the air as soon as he started singing. "Some people," he sniffed. "Don't appreciate talent. Ianto, truth or dare?"

"Dare."

Owen grinned and pushed a bottle of rum onto its side, then looked directly at Ianto. "I dare you to kiss..." he span the bottle and they watched, waiting with baited breath for it to stop. "I dare you to kiss Jack," he crowed triumphantly.

Immediately, Ianto flinched away from Jack and looked between him and Owen repeatedly. "What?"

"That's the dare," Gwen told him. "What's the forfeit?"

"Stripping," Owen folded his arms and smirked. "And it's a little chilly in here, don't you think, Ianto? Pucker up boys."

Jack opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again when Ianto turned back to him. He didn't want to make Ianto think that he didn't want to kiss him in public, but he didn't want Ianto to think that he had to if he didn't want to. It was all up to Ianto, now; he could take the forfeit, or take the dare.

Just when Jack thought that Ianto would take the forfeit, Ianto, as usual, proved him wrong. He turned to Jack and framed his face with his hands gently but quickly, then leaned in and kissed him. Jack let him take the lead, but cupped Ianto's cheek with one hand to steady him. He parted his lips at the first unexpected brush of Ianto's tongue against them and stroked back with his own tongue to urge Ianto on. When Ianto broke the kiss, slowing to a gentle stop and brushing their lips together once more, he rested their foreheads together and breathed deeply, then turned and settled back against Jack's chest, guiding Jack's arm around his waist. The rest of the team were staring and Ianto shrugged. "That do, Owen?"

Owen coughed and glared, whilst Tosh chuckled. "You took him back, then?"


End file.
